In Texas, Oversight for Crime Labs Is Urged

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

Published: January 5, 2005

Correction Appended

Facing two recently freed prisoners who each spent 17 years behind bars because of false scientific evidence, Texas senators on Tuesday pointed fingers of blame and urged oversight that could position the state at the forefront of national efforts to prevent wrongful convictions.

With the Houston Police Department still working its way through 280 boxes of misplaced evidence from 8,000 cases dating from the 1970's and discovered last August, members of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice sparred with the police chief and district attorney over issues that included the advisability of a moratorium on executions, the pace of reform and the openness of laboratory operations.

News accounts in November 2002 first exposed the Houston crime laboratory's shoddy procedures and sloppy conditions, among a wave of similar scandals at laboratories in Virginia, Montana, Ohio and even the F.B.I The Houston laboratory was shut down for a time and its DNA work given to an outside contractor. Several top staff members were fired or resigned, but grand juries voted no indictments.

''I've been in washaterias cleaner than the crime lab,'' Senator Thomas D. Williams, Republican of The Woodlands, north of Houston, said at a hearing at Houston Community College. ''It's a spaghetti bowl.''

Another critic, the panel's longtime chairman, Senator John Whitmire, Democrat of Houston and the chamber's longest-serving member, asked Chief Harold L. Hurtt why it would take until at least March or April to select a project manager to begin reviewing the laboratory's actions, going back to 1978.

''Am I missing your sense of urgency?'' Mr. Whitmire asked. He also complained that the police laboratory itself was retesting evidence and that no outside monitor has been reviewing the work. ''Who's going to grade your paper?'' he asked.

Chief Hurtt, who inherited the scandal when he arrived from Phoenix in March and has been generally praised for his leadership under difficult conditions, said, ''We're trying the best we can, partnering with the D.A.'' He estimated that 62 percent of the boxes had been opened and cataloged but said that progress was slow because evidence from different cases had been mixed together.

Senator Kyle Janek, Republican of Houston, could not resist. ''I've got some of those drawers in my house,'' Mr. Janek said.

Chief Hurtt assured the lawmakers that ''no evidence to date has been found relating to any active investigation'' but was less willing than the Harris County district attorney, Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., to predict that none would be found.

Mr. Hurtt also said, after some pressing by the senators, that he favored a moratorium on executions, ''on a case-by-case basis,'' until all the evidence had been cataloged.

Mr. Rosenthal said: ''I don't think we should have a moratorium. But you have to be very judicious.''

Mr. Whitmire said that when the Legislature convened next week he would consider creating a state agency to independently investigate charges of misconduct at laboratories. Under the Justice for All Act signed in October, no state can receive federal forensic science grants without such an agency. If it acts this year, Texas would be one of the first, officials said.

Watching from the audience and then the witness table were two men who, their lawyer, Barry Scheck said, ''represent the human face of forensic error and misconduct.''

One, Brandon Moon, was released from prison two weeks ago after serving nearly 17 years on a rape conviction that was overturned as based on a faulty DNA test.

The other, George Rodriguez, was freed in October after also spending 17 years in prison on a rape conviction also based on false DNA evidence. In Mr. Rodriguez's case, Mr. Rosenthal said he was considering whether to refile charges.

Mr. Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which focuses on wrongful convictions, said that a third client, Ernest R. Willis, released from death row after a tainted arson conviction was thrown out, was ''afraid to come into the state.''

Mr. Moon, who said his ordeal had cost him an Air Force flying career, told the senators that he had felt powerless in prison. ''I had no method of enforcing procedures,'' he said. ''I could file all the motions I wanted, but I couldn't get heard.''

Mr. Rodriguez did not want to say anything at first. Then he said, ''I just hope the lab gets better.''

Photo: Brandon Moon, left, and George Rodriguez, right, freed prisoners, listened as Barry Scheck spoke yesterday to a Senate committee in Texas. (Photo by Michael Stravato for The New York Times)

Correction: January 8, 2005, Saturday
An article on Wednesday about efforts to reform the Houston police crime laboratory misstated the nature of flawed evidence in the trials of Brandon Moon and George Rodriguez, who were convicted of rape. The prosecution relied on serology evidence. (DNA testing was not available at the time, and was later used to overturn the conviction.)